


Ghosts

by Wallwalker



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Community: esper_cave, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-20
Updated: 2009-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 10:33:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wallwalker/pseuds/Wallwalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Celes doesn't understand. Why is she the only one among them who is not haunted?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Esper Cave](http://community.livejournal.com/esper_cave/) community on LiveJournal.  
> Prompts: 22. Pain, 32. Past, 39. Forgiveness, 80. Broken, 97. Goodbye

Sometimes, when she was in a particularly introspective mood, Celes would sit down and try to count all of the people that she'd ever killed.

It was a lot more complicated than most would guess, because she never knew exactly which ones to count. Should she just count the people who had died by her own hand, either her blade or her magic, or should she also account for the ones who died at the hands of the men she'd led? And what about the thousands who had died because of the Tearing of the world? If she had accepted or even pretended to accept Gestahl's plans for her, would Kefka's madness have been held at bay, and could they somehow have prevented it all from happening?

But no matter which deaths she counted, there was no hiding that she had blood on her hands. And she had seen many more people die around her, friends and enemies alike. She has never been haunted by any of them; she's never seen a single ghost, neither while she is awake or while she sleeps.

Until recently, she has never thought to ask herself why.

\---

She'd known from the very beginning that Locke was haunted; she could see something in his eyes, a secret that he tried to hide behind a cool manner and an easy smile. Learning about Rachel hadn't been the revelation that he'd probably expected it to be; it had just confirmed what had already been terribly obvious.

She hadn't known what to feel about it at first. It was obvious that he was seeing that girl whenever he looked at Celes; his help was as much a plea for forgiveness from the dead as it was a genuine act of kindness. She tried to dismiss it at first, to convince herself that it would have been the same if she had been anyone else.

For a while, it had worked. For a while, she'd been able to convince herself that she wasn't anything special in his eyes, that it was just misplaced guilt - that he saw ghosts in her eyes and tried to appease them. For a while, she'd been able to act like there was nothing strange about it.

Just for a while, though.

\---

If she hadn't met Locke before she'd met Setzer, maybe she wouldn't have noticed Setzer's ghost. Setzer was better at hiding that part of himself - he was older and more experienced, less inclined to give away what he was thinking out of an unconscious desire for sympathy. She was sure that he still felt a need for it, but he seemed to have grown adept at combining it, or perhaps replacing it altogether, with his hunger for luxury.

With Locke it was the things that he said, the references to "her" that always seemed to come between them. With Setzer it was the things he never said, the half-finished sentences, the way his lips twisted when he talked about fate as if he really wanted to curse it. He never did, not out loud, as if he feared to take that one last step, but it didn't matter; the hate was always there, just under his breath. It showed in the way that he always lived for the moment, never daring to make plans for the future, lest fate choose to destroy them and laugh in his face.

She'd decided never to ask Setzer what haunted him so, if only because she remembered how difficult it had been, knowing the truth about Locke. But he'd gone and told her one day, told her about a woman named Daryl as they raided her tomb - a last resort, he'd said, and something that she'd probably forgive in the end.

He hadn't seemed the least bit surprised when Celes took his great secret in stride. In a way, he'd seemed almost relieved.

\---

It didn't make sense, no matter how she looked at it. By all rights, she ought to have more ghosts than either of them. There should be thousands of souls in her mind, crying out for her life.

She thought about the men she'd commanded, throwing their lives away for what had turned out to be one man's greed. She thought of the men and women she'd slaughtered, the soldiers who had died in her attacks, the orphaned children who'd starved or frozen to death in war-torn countries. She thought of them all over and over, all of the faceless masses, and felt... not _nothing,_ not by any stretch of the imagination, but not haunted by them, not suffering with them.

She thought of General Leo, dying on the point of Kefka's sword in Thamasa. Now there was something that should've meant more to her. Leo had been something of a mentor for her for years. She'd respected him, even though they'd rarely agreed on battle tactics or the role that magic should play in the Empire's government. And the way that he'd died, crushed both in body and spirit, infuriated her even to that day - it hadn't been enough for Kefka to kill him. The bastard had broken him, taken _everything_ away from him and then laughed about it. But she'd been dry-eyed when they'd buried him, utterly drained of emotion. Terra had been the one who had put flowers on his grave and shed a tear for him, even though she could not have possibly known him as well as Celes had.

Maybe Granddad's memory would have haunted her, if he had died on that lonely island. Maybe she never would have been able to forgive herself. But Cid was still alive, still tinkering with his inventions in his cottage by the sea. She visited him as often as she could, of course; he was the closest thing to family that she had. But even if he were to die that morning, would he haunt her now? She didn't think so - she would mourn, but then she would say goodbye and let him go. Maybe she was just better at letting things go, not allowing them to linger. Or maybe she just wasn't as good at holding on to them in the first place.

She wasn't sure what the difference was. She hoped that someday, she'd understand it.


End file.
